Irina’s POV
"Where else are you going to run?!"
The furious, explosive roar was still violently echoing through the freezing night air. It rattled my eardrums. It shook the very ground beneath my feet. I was pinned completely flush against the rough, unforgiving stone wall of Rosewood Manor. The freezing rock bit into my spine, but all I could feel was the blistering, overwhelming heat of his massive body pressing flush against mine.
Nicholas’s large hand was still wrapped securely around my throat.
I was absolutely terrified. My heart hamred against my ribcage so violently I thought it was going to literally crack my sternum in half. I stared up into his eyes. The beautiful forest green had been completely, entirely swallowed by a pitch-black, unhinged violence.
I was shaking uncontrollably. I wanted to scream. I wanted to beg him to let go. I wanted to scream that I would rather die than let him anywhere near my baby. But the sheer, suffocating terror completely paralyzed my vocal cords.
I fought him. I fought him with every single ounce of my pathetic human strength. I shoved both of my trembling hands flat against his rock-hard chest, desperately trying to push his massive fra away. I needed to escape. I needed to turn around and disappear back into the pitch-black pine forest.
But he didn’t give a single second to run.
He didn’t wait for an answer to his furious question. In the very next heartbeat, he violently dipped his head. With the destructive, terrifying force of a hurricane, his mouth crashed down onto mine.
I sharply gasped, but the sound was completely swallowed by his lips.
This was not a gentle kiss. It was absolutely nothing like romance. It was a brutal, punishing claiming. It was the desperate, starving frenzy of a lethal predator finally tearing into its long-lost prey. His lips ground heavily against mine with a rough, unforgiving dominance that bordered on bruising. Our teeth clashed together. The sharp, tallic tang of blood blood instantly on my tongue.
His scent completely surrounded . That intense, overpowering, aggressive male scent—the sll of freezing rain, clean earth, and pure, concentrated alpha pheromones—violently flooded my airways. It was a storm, and I was drowning in the center of it.
*No...* I let out a broken, muffled whimper deep in my throat.
I kept my hands planted firmly on his chest. I kept pushing. I had to escape. My brain was screaming at to fight.
But in that exact, devastating fraction of a second, everything entirely spiraled out of my control.
The mate bond completely, violently detonated.
For the entire past year, locked away in the suffocating halls of Greystone, my wolf had been a shattered, broken thing. She had been dead. She had slept like a cold corpse inside my ribs, completely numb to the world. But now, she was awake. And for the very first ti since she had miraculously healed, she was receiving the full, undiluted, overwhelming connection of her fated mate.
*Awooooo—!!*
My wolf threw her head back in the absolute depths of my soul and let out a massive, incredibly long howl of pure, unadulterated ecstasy.
She felt absolutely no fear. She didn’t care about what this man had done to us. She didn’t care about the dungeon. She didn’t care how desperately my human mind wanted to run. She only knew one single, biological truth: This was her Alpha. This was the other half of her soul, carved directly into her genetic code.
The mate bond felt like invisible, heavy iron chains supercharged with high-voltage electricity.
The chains wrapped tightly around my entire body. A terrifyingly intense, blistering current shot directly from where his lips touched mine, racing down from the scorching palm wrapped around my neck, and injected pure fire straight into my bloodstream.
My body completely and utterly betrayed .
In the span of a single breath, my rigid, terrified muscles lted. They dissolved like warm butter left out in the blistering sun. My knees instantly buckled. I lost every single ounce of my ability to stand. If his massive, towering body wasn’t pinning so securely against the stone wall, and if his hand wasn’t gripping my throat like an iron vice, I would have collapsed into a pathetic heap on the freezing pavent.
My hands, the very hands that had been desperately fighting him, lost all of their strength.
They trembled violently. My fingers slowly, instinctively curled inward. Instead of pushing him away, my hands weakly grabbed handfuls of his dark jacket. I gripped the heavy fabric like it was a literal lifeline, clinging to him as if he were the only solid thing left in a violently spinning world.
A low, dark, incredibly dangerous growl rumbled deep in Nicholas’s throat.
He felt it. He felt my body completely surrender to his.
The hand gripping my throat loosened just a fraction—just enough to remove the lethal threat—but his rough thumb aggressively pressed into my jawline. He forced my chin up higher, tilting my head back to expose the entire, vulnerable length of my neck. He demanded more access, and my treacherous body gave it to him.
His tongue roughly parted my lips. He invaded my mouth with scorching heat and absolute, undeniable authority. He swept through every inch, claiming , tasting , branding with an intensity that made the blood roar in my ears.
"Mmh..."
A soft, sweet, entirely helpless moan slipped out from between our tangled lips.
I was screaming inside my own head. Hot, heavy tears spilled over my eyelashes, tracking down my flushed cheeks and disappearing into the space where our mouths t.
I hated myself. I absolutely despised this pathetic, broken version of myself.
He was a monster. He was a mafia tyrant. He was the Mad King who had locked in a dark, windowless cell. He had crushed with his alpha aura. He had put through the most terrifying, agonizing trauma of my entire life. How could I possibly respond to him?! How could my body be turning to absolute liquid heat against his chest?!
But the ancient magic of the mate bond was completely, terrifyingly absolute.
The deep, bone-lting electricity racing through my veins made it physically impossible to control my own biological instincts. Every single place his body touched mine felt like it was catching on fire. His scorching body heat radiated into the freezing night, wrapping around like a heavy, suffocating blanket. God help , a dark, twisted part of my soul was actually craving this terrifying, overwhelming sense of safety. I was craving his absolute possession.
My wolf was frantically wagging her tail. She was submitting. She was rejoicing.
And I, even though my human heart was bleeding, even though my brain was violently sounding every single alarm, found my lips parting wider. I started to instinctively, clumsily return the brutal, devastating kiss.
The absolute second my tongue hesitantly brushed against his, Nicholas’s entire massive body went completely rigid.
And then, he kissed even harder.
The intensity skyrocketed into pure madness. His free arm wrapped tightly around my small waist, violently yanking my fragile body flush against his rock-hard fra. Through our clothes, I could feel every single, rigid line of his muscles. I could feel his burning body heat. And I could feel the hard, undeniable, dangerously unhinged evidence of his raw arousal pressing heavily against my stomach.
The sexual tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.
The freezing air was completely saturated with dangerous, electric sparks. His imnse physical power entirely eclipsed . I was nothing but a fragile leaf caught in a hurricane, completely drowning in the absolute, destructive perfection of his kiss.
My face was burning hot. My heart was slamming so wildly in my chest it felt like it was going to launch right out of my throat.
The lack of oxygen was making my head spin violently. My vision blurred. The entire dark forest, the stone manor, the cold night—it all violently spun off its axis. The only thing tethering to the earth was the deafening sound of his racing heartbeat and the wet, frantic, intimate sound of our lips sliding together.
I couldn’t catch my breath. I could only let out tiny, broken, helpless whimpers against his mouth, sounding exactly like a cornered prey animal finally submitting to the predator that had hunted it down.
I didn’t know how long it lasted. Just as I felt my knees finally give out entirely, just as the black spots of unconsciousness began to violently dance across my vision, he finally broke the kiss.
Nicholas pulled back, but only by a single inch.
He didn’t let go. His straight, sharp nose was still brushing lightly against mine. Our lips were barely a milliter apart, our rapid, heavy, heated breaths completely mingling in the freezing night air.
His broad chest heaved violently against mine. The pitch-black darkness in his eyes was swirling chaotically, as if he were using every single ounce of his terrifying willpower just to stop himself from devouring whole right there on the pavent.
I gasped greedily for air, my chest rising and falling in harsh, ragged, desperate motions. My cheeks felt like they were literally on fire. My eyes were completely glazed over, heavy tears still clinging to my dark lashes. My body was entirely boneless, completely devoid of any strength. I was just weakly gripping his dark jacket, leaning heavily against the freezing stone wall to keep from collapsing.
The dark night surrounding us was dead silent, save for the heavy, ragged sounds of our breathing.
Then, just when I was bracing myself for him to explode in another violent rage, or simply throw over his shoulder and drag away, he moved.
The large, blistering hot hand that was still securely gripping my fragile throat slowly tightened. Just a fraction. His rough, calloused thumb, radiating a scorching, possessive heat, began to slowly, dangerously stroke the frantic, racing pulse of my carotid artery.
He kept his head bowed, his pitch-black eyes dropping down to stare intensely at my swollen, thoroughly kissed lips.
In the dead of the night, his voice rumbled right against my mouth. It was incredibly low, impossibly hoarse, and dripping with an absolute, terrifying dominance.
"When did you get your wolf back?"
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